


Intent to Commit

by andchaos



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6436732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with the trial. It starts with Lydia.<br/>She says, “I want to drop the charges,” and Isabelle has the strangest thought. She thinks, <i>Maybe Alec was right about her</i>, and then she thinks, <i>she isn’t so bad</i>, and then she notices how pretty her hair looks braided across one side and the rest of it falling across her shoulders in gentle blonde waves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intent to Commit

 

          It starts with the trial. It starts with Lydia.

          She says, “I want to drop the charges,” and Isabelle has the strangest thought. She thinks, _Maybe Alec was right about her_ , and then she thinks, _she isn’t so bad_ , and then she notices how pretty her hair looks braided across one side and the rest of it falling across her shoulders in gentle blonde waves. Isabelle jumps up and Magnus sets the papers in the briefcase flying in a whirlwind of confetti and she’s hugging Alec, then she’s hugging Magnus. Before she thinks any more crazy, confusing things, she pulls Lydia into her arms. Her chin hooks over her shoulder and Lydia’s arms are stiff and awkward around Isabelle’s back, and Lydia smells like faintly of daisies and more strongly like vanilla perfume. It’s strange, she smells so artificial, all of her scent concocted from perfume and shampoo and whatever soap she uses, and Isabelle wonders what she smells like when it’s just _Lydia_. Daisies, she imagines.

          Then she pulls back and gets her head on straight. The judge calls for order and she’s not really forgiven for her transgressions, they want to punish her for charges that have been dropped anyway. It doesn’t really make any sense and it’s not really fair and from the corner of her eye she sees the way Lydia’s face falls more than all the rest’s. Lydia wanted to help. Lydia wanted to be _good_.

          Isabelle tucks that information away for later. Now, she has to figure out how not to get exiled in the morning. If there’s a loophole, she has to find it.

 

\- - -

 

          Clary and Jace come back with the cup, and Alec comes into her room to tell her that she’s off the hook after all. He hugs her again, and his face is relaxed and he smiles like she hasn’t seen in what feels like years and years. She doesn’t know what’s going on between Alec and Magnus anymore, but they walk each other out, and the door closes behind them with a kind of extreme finality.

          Isabelle paces the room in circles. She feels restless, like not all of her business has been taken care of yet; she doesn’t know why, or what she can do to dispel the manic energy away.

          She goes to her closet, dropping her trial dress from her shoulders to the floor. She’s just in her heels and her underwear, and she rifles through her closet for something else to change into before deciding that she needs a shower first. Anything to wash the day out of her skin.

          The water is warm as it pounds down on her neck, on her back, onto her face as she smooths her hair out of her face. She massages her fingers into her shoulders, her neck. She doesn’t know why but she still feels… _off_. When she steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around herself, she almost feels all better, but not quite there yet. She pauses, swallowing hard around a sudden obstruction in her throat.

          Isabelle changes into pajamas after that, even though she knows that she isn’t going to bed. She throws on sweatpants and a tight tanktop, good enough to sleep in but covered enough that she can still walk around if she decides to.

          She paces around her room again. Twice more. Thinks about actually playing computer Solitaire the way she joked about to Alec earlier. Thinks about ordering something for dinner. None of it feels right. Her skin itches. She needs to do something…

          Isabelle gives up after another twenty minutes. It’s a little ridiculous, she thinks as she pads barefoot out of her room and down the winding hallways, that this is what she’s been aching to do for at least an hour.

          Isabelle stops outside the door. She crossed her arms close to her chest to keep from just reaching out and knocking. This can’t make her feel better. This is stupid; she doesn’t know why she feels so badly that she needs to do this.

          Eventually, Isabelle sighs. She came all the way here already. Rolling her eyes a little at herself, Isabelle reaches out and raps hard on the wood in front of her.

          She hopes that nobody’s home. She hopes nobody answers the second time she knocks, too, that she can just go back to her room and pretend none of this ever happened. She’s about five seconds from doing just that when the door swings open in front of her, and there’s Lydia, brushing her hair with one hand and holding the doorknob with the other. The hand in her hair pauses when she sees who it is, and she straightens where she stands.

          “Isabelle,” says Lydia, blinking at her. “What are you…I mean.” She clears her throat. “Come in.”

          She opens the door a little wider.

          Isabelle’s struck for a moment as she enters Lydia’s bedroom. It’s softly gray all over, kind of bland in Isabelle’s opinion, but she can see the lure for somebody like Lydia. There’s no paintings on the walls, no decorations other than a candelabra on the dresser and an ornate, antique clock on the wall, the kind with hands that actually go around and that doesn’t have any numbers lining the edges. Isabelle looks at all of it, the muted grays and blacks that seems to be her color scheme, with dashes of dark purple added in to give the room some kind of life. Lydia clears her throat behind her, and Isabelle remembers herself as she turns back to her.

          Lydia is watching her; Isabelle catches her eyes flick up to her face as she turns, and she presses her lips together.

          “I’m sorry,” says Lydia, tilting her head down just a little bit. “I’m not used to seeing you so…casual.”

          Isabelle gives a little laugh. “You either,” she says. “It’s strange.”

          Lydia blushes lightly. She, too, has dispensed of her formal clothing that she donned for the trial, and she’s only in a soft t-shirt now and a pair of cotton shorts. Isabelle tries not to look at her legs, but her eyes are drawn to them; she’s never seen them bare, and in truth, she didn’t really expect them to be toned as they are. Lydia’s a small woman, same as Isabelle, but there’s still something lithe and easy about her that Isabelle will never be able to achieve. She’s hardly dainty, but something about Lydia seems more solid. Real.

          Lydia coughs. Isabelle realizes that the silence has stretched out too long in her assessment, and she ducks her head slightly.

          “Sorry,” she says. “I just came by to…”

          The words won’t come. Isabelle doesn’t know why she came. The reason she had half-constructed in her head on the walk over suddenly seems flimsy, like a lie she didn’t realize she was telling.

          Lydia is watching her with her eyes narrowed.

          “You don’t have to say it,” says Lydia, and Isabelle’s gaze jumps back to her, surprised. She sounds…harsh. “I’m not going to defend my adherence to the law to you.”

          “No, no! That’s not why I came here.”

          Lydia pauses. Her teeth worry her lip. “It isn’t?”

          “No.”

          Isabelle can’t look at her anymore suddenly, and she sweeps by her, resuming her earlier pacing around Lydia’s room instead. The nervous energy has restarted in her legs, in her mouth. She’s worried about what she’ll say when it all spills out.

          Lydia steps in front of her, stopping her frazzled strides. Her face ducks down until she catches Isabelle’s eye, and there’s nowhere else for her to look.

          Lydia’s voice is gentle. Coaxing. Isabelle imagines that this is what she sounds like in an interrogation to relax the suspect. Then she shakes her head—she doesn’t want to think about _Lydia_ and _interrogation_ in the same context anymore.

          “Why did you come here then?” asks Lydia.

          Isabelle swallows. “I came here to thank you,” she says. Lydia stands up straighter, taking her a little further away, and her eyes widen. “Yeah. I wanted to thank you for what you did back there. I know how much the law means to you, and how much you care about doing what’s right…”

          “They’re not always the same thing, you know,” says Lydia. She turns away and picks her brush back up. She’s more fluid now, more relaxed when she sits on the edge of her bed and resumes the slow strokes of her brush. “For awhile, I didn’t know what to do—I never expected there to be a divide like this. I was raised…the Clave, and my parents, always taught me that the law is _always_ the right thing, and that it’s emotion that clouds that and makes people do stupid things. I realize now…”

          “That sometimes doing what’s right means going against the Clave,” says Isabelle. She sits beside Lydia on the bed, just a little too close. Her hand finds Lydia’s, easing it away from its slow strokes through her hair. Her brush drops to her lap, and Isabelle curls her fingers over Lydia’s palm. “I am sorry that my family put you in this position.”

          Lydia tips her head towards Isabelle. “Soon it will be my family too,” she says. “I have to protect what’s mine.”

          Isabelle should draw her hand away. Lydia doesn’t mean it that way; she means it like a friend, like a sister. Instead her mouth curls up wickedly.

          “Am I yours?” she teases.

          The blush that floods across Lydia’s cheeks sends thrills curling through Isabelle’s stomach. She’s still grinning even when Lydia pulls her hand away and looks in the complete other direction, studying a picture frame propped up on her bureau.

          “You’re my friend,” says Lydia.

          Isabelle presses her lips together. Lydia looks back at her.

          “Is that okay?” says Lydia.

          Before she answers, Isabelle gazes at her for a prolonged moment. Her takes her time, finding the runes curling up her neck, the perfect shape her eyebrows, the part of her lips. Isabelle smiles and raises her eyes back to Lydia’s.

          “I can work with that,” she says.

          Lydia’s answering smile is quiet, tucked into her chest where she ducks her head as though Isabelle can no longer see her this way. Isabelle bumps her shoulder with her own, and Lydia looks up again.

          “You’re a terrible prosecutor,” says Isabelle.

          Lydia shakes with her near-silent laughter. “Screw you,” she says. “You’re lucky I’m so bad at it.”

          “That was a thank you,” says Isabelle. She throws her arm around Lydia’s shoulder and she’s warm when Isabelle squeezes her closer. “For being so terrible, I mean. Because it was. So bad.”

          “You’re lucky,” repeats Lydia. “Your defense attorney was abject himself. He could have gotten OJ convicted.”

          “From what I hear, you have quite a thing for my abject attorney,” says Isabelle, grinning when Lydia blushes again. She finds that she has a thing for turning Lydia—composed, careful, professional Lydia—shades of red.

          “Not like that,” she protests. “I just hear he’s…quite magical.”

          Isabelle snorts. “Did Alec tell you that?”

          Lydia just stares at her. Isabelle gasps.

          “Oh my god, he _did_! I knew it!”

          Lydia’s brow furrows. “Knew what?”

          “Never mind.” Isabelle waves her off. “Forget it. I just can’t believe you’re falling over yourself for _Magnus Bane_ of all people.”

          “I’m not falling over myself,” says Lydia. She’s haughty again, drawing herself up, shirking away from where Isabelle hasn’t let her go from the circle of her arm. “I just admire him, that’s all.”

          “Well, right now I’m admiring you,” says Isabelle.

          All at once, she realizes how that sounded. Her pulse quickens against her throat, and Isabelle drops her arm from around Lydia’s shoulder. She didn’t mean it like that. Lydia wasn’t…like that.

          Probably.

          Isabelle’s eyes flicker back over to the framed picture on the dresser. There’s a man’s face inside of it, and Isabelle knows that story, the whole reason that Lydia is the way she is now: John. Isabelle looks away then, and she sighs.

          Lydia’s fingers are light and unexpected when they flutter near Isabelle’s bare arm. Isabelle doesn’t jump, but she turns back to her too quickly, like a reflex move.

          “That’s okay,” says Lydia. She sweeps stray strands of Isabelle’s hair off her shoulders in measured brushes of her hand. Her smile is wobbly, unsure and shy. “I admire you too, Isabelle.”

          Isabelle can’t tear her eyes from Lydia’s face. She’s gentler now, relaxing back into who she seems to be when she’s alone, not that Isabelle would really know who that is. She still likes what she’s seen of it better than she does professional Lydia, who arrested her on treason charges.

          Neither of them look away, but Isabelle knows that they’ve been gazing at each other for a little too long. They’re so close Isabelle can barely register the scent of daises drifting off her skin, stronger than when it was masked with all the artificial smells of her shower and her perfumes. Just Lydia. Isabelle could get used to just Lydia.

          Her eyes flicker down to her mouth. Bare of lipstick now. Just Lydia.

          All at once, Lydia clears her throat loudly, and Isabelle jumps back. Lydia’s hand is gone, no longer a warm weight on her arm, and there’s space between them where there was barely any before.

          “You should get going,” says Lydia. Her eyes are anywhere but Isabelle’s face. “You should get some rest. It’s been a hectic day.”

          “Yes,” Isabelle agrees. “Yes.”

          She’s mindless as she stands up from the bed, and that frantic energy is back. Now, instead of pulling her towards Lydia, it’s screaming _away, away, get as far away as you possibly can_. Isabelle nearly trips trying to back up for the door.

          She manages to fumble it open from behind, and then she’s back out in the hallway, in just her pajamas and her bare feet. The floor seems colder than it did before. Isabelle pauses, one hand on the door, halfway out of Lydia’s room already. Lydia shuffles around her room, not looking up until Isabelle says, softer than air,

          “Goodnight, Lydia.”

          Lydia holds her eyes for two and a half seconds and not any more.

          “Goodnight, Izzy.”

 

\- - -

 

          They don’t get married. Isabelle thinks, _god, yes_ , and she realizes with a start that she doesn’t know if it’s because Alec’s now free or because Lydia is. She doesn’t see, reasonably, why it can’t be both.

          Isabelle’s heart is pounding. The lights are off and the day—a week after the non-wedding—has been long and she can’t breathe. The darkness seems oppressive, pressing in on her and stifling her lungs. When she closes her eyes, she sees fields of flowers.

          Her breathing picks up. She aches everywhere for something she can’t imagine. Something she recognizes but can’t want. It feels…dangerous. Like when she breaks the Clave’s rules but thrilling in a different way, shooting deep into her gut and wrenching her around, completely at its mercy. Anything to feel this way again, but maybe without the way her heart feels like it’s softly breaking.

          She isn’t surprised when the knock on her door comes, but Isabelle shoots up until she’s sitting upright in her bed anyway. Her heart is beating so hard, pounding blood into her ears until she can’t hear anything else. She doesn’t know if whoever is outside her door is breathing or shifting around or knocking again. Her words get stuck in her throat when she first opens her mouth, and she has to swallow hard.

          “Come in,” she calls.

          The door presses open slowly, and Isabelle’s breath catches. Then a head swings around the gap between the door and its frame, a blonde head with a pretty smile, softened the way Isabelle rarely sees during the day. Lydia is not the same person working as she is at night.

          Isabelle rarely has the pleasure of seeing this other side of her, and she sits up when she sticks her head in, the covers dropping to pool around her waist. She was only sleeping in a sports bra, and she watches as Lydia takes in her sleepwear with slow, obvious sweeps of her eyes, and then as she turns faintly pink as her eyes raise back, determined, to her face.

          “Were you sleeping?” she asks.

          “I’m awake,” Isabelle reassures her. She curls her legs closer to herself until the blankets drop away from them too, and then she stretches them out over her bed, shifting over to make room. She pats the mattress next to her. “Come in, please.”

          Lydia’s movements are jerky, like she’s unsure even after the reassurance, but she treads on light feet over the threshold and into Isabelle’s room. Isabelle thinks, fleetingly, that Lydia would not be terribly out of place in ballet slippers, if she ever cared to trade her business heels for a spin around the dance floor. Isabelle would teach her how, maybe. In another life.

          Now, Lydia is in sneakers, which Isabelle imagines she threw on just so that she wouldn’t be wandering barefoot through the Institute because she’s also in cotton shorts and a soft tank top that make her look like she might have been readying herself for sleep too before she decided to take a midnight stroll down to Isabelle’s room. Her hair is down, nothing fancy done to it at all to indicate that she is wearing her professional mask, and Isabelle thinks it’s the closest to barefoot she might ever see her.

          Lydia sinks down onto the vacant side of the bed. Her eyes are downcast.

          “I don’t know why I’m here,” she confesses.

          She sweeps hair away from her face, her teeth embedding prints into the soft skin of her bottom lip. Isabelle catches her gaze when she looks up, and she laughs.

          “That’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad you’re here anyway.”

          Lydia goes silent. Her tank top is tight, hugging her curves and the soft rises of her breasts and sliding up the way tight tank tops sometimes do. The exposed part of her stomach should be soft too, and it is, but it’s also somehow flat and toned at the same time. Isabelle wants to learn to write beautiful things suddenly, and she wants to title her first piece and many more after _Her Gray Tank Top_ and not ever write about anything else.

          Lydia relaxes against the pillow that Isabelle nudges over to her side of the bed. She folds her hands on her lap, and it’s almost prim; Isabelle laughs.

          “Didn’t you ever learn how to relax?” she asks.

          Lydia stares blankly at her. Isabelle shakes her head and reaches over towards her. Lydia doesn’t move, just watches her like an animal might before they’re sure whether what’s in front of them will harm them or not, and so Isabelle is gentle when she picks up one of Lydia’s hands and cradles it in her own. She holds the back of Lydia’s hand against the front of her own and rubs her thumb in slow, deep circles into the thick muscle below where her palm meets her thumb. Lydia watches her and Isabelle watches her back, she doesn’t ever let her attention flicker to the work she is doing.

          “I…” Lydia swallows and Isabelle tracks the dip of her throat, then the way her tongue presses into her cheek, and back up to meet her eyes. “I didn’t even know I was sore there.”

          “It happens when you use a pen for too long,” says Isabelle. “My mother taught me. I thought you might be…I thought it might hurt from all the preparations you’ve been doing.”

          She doesn’t mention the wedding by name. Lydia nods slowly and Isabelle thinks it may be a thankful gesture.

          “It does,” she says. She sounds surprised. “I just…thank you.”

          Isabelle’s eyebrows lift with her rising smile. “For the massage? It’s not that big of a deal.”

          “No. For everything,” Lydia clarifies. “You’ve been…you’re one of the few who actually like me around here. Most people still aren’t entirely acclimatizing well to such a radical personnel change, especially with the uproar about your parents’ Circle status and what with my association with the Clave. I know you’re all used to a certain amount of…latitude, around here. I don’t mean to damage it.”

          Isabelle sighs. Her hand slows in its ministrations, but it doesn’t stop fully.

          “We’re not used to answering to the Clave so up-close and personally,” explains Isabelle. “And we don’t like being told what to do. It isn’t personal.”

          “I know.” Lydia sighs. “But it still…well, to be frank. It still sucks.”

          That startles a laugh out of Isabelle, and Lydia smiles reluctantly.

          “We’re still getting used to each other,” says Isabelle. “Don’t count yourself as a failure before we’re done systematically running you out of town.”

          Lydia rolls her eyes. “Ha, ha. I’m serious, Isabelle. Clary just about can’t look at me still after I vetoed her extraprofessional mission last week, and Jace won’t say two words to me that isn’t strictly required to go about his business. It’s frustrating.”

          “Jace is just angry about Clary,” says Isabelle, waving her free hand dismissively. “You know, they can be a blind spot for one another. He sees you as part of the reason that things are strange between them, and it doesn’t help that she’s lashing out with him because he agrees with you. It’s not your fault, of course. But Jace is not always the most rational; sometimes he lets his passion get the better of him.”

          “And his passion,” Lydia says slowly, like she’s parsing it out as Isabelle speaks, “it’s for Clary?”

          Isabelle cracks a commiserating smile. “And now you know another reason why she isn’t overly taken with you. The Alec mess didn’t help either of them either, but I think they feel better about that since the wedding.”

          Lydia shakes her head. “Are you one of those interdependent groups that have boundary issues and are all in love with one another?”

          Isabelle’s offended for half a second before she realizes that Lydia’s smiling.

          “Oh my god,” she says. She pauses her massage to gape, and she rests her hand not holding Lydia’s over her heart. “Did you just make a _joke_?”

          Lydia pulls her hand away from Isabelle’s. This time when she folds them on her lap, it’s more relaxed and less calculated, and she’s even grinning a little bit.

          “I can be funny,” she says.

          “I just didn’t know you had it in you!” says Isabelle. “Wow. You are not what I expected, Lydia Branwell. Not at all.”

          They’re sitting against her headboard very close together, and Lydia barely has to sway to get her arm to bump playfully into Isabelle’s.

          “What did you expect from me?”

          “Nothing,” says Isabelle. She runs a hand through her hair; she feels suddenly windswept, like the grass has been tugged from beneath her feet. “You just seemed so…serious! On that level, you and Alec were basically made for each other.”

          “Your brother’s not my type,” says Lydia. “I am not letting this go! Tell me what you expected of me!”

          Isabelle ignores the last part completely; her mouth is curling into that dangerous smile again, and in her head, she’s begging herself to stop leaning so close, she’s begging herself not to say what she knows is about to tumble out of her mouth, but her body is inundated with the scent of daisies and she’s muddled again. She doesn’t seem to have that function that allows her brain to dictate what her body is doing.

          “He’s not?” she asks. “What is your type then?”

          The full-face blush that blooms over Lydia then is absolutely striking. She hitches a breath in and then stops—Isabelle is so close to her that she can hear it. Her mouth is open, but still quirked up slightly, and Isabelle takes that as an opening. She doesn’t back off, she leans _closer_ , just a quarter of an inch, and she blinks long and slow and waits, waits, waits.

          Finally Lydia exhales. Her expression smooths out professionally again—Isabelle isn’t fooled. Her mouth closes and Isabelle thinks maybe she isn’t going to answer.

          “Mine’s boys who aren’t afraid of me,” Isabelle volunteers. Lydia seems to relax infinitesimally at that, and especially when Isabelle leans away a little, giving her space to breathe. She doesn’t stop there though, waving her hand around. “Most boys get nervous around me…It’s not narcissism, you know. That’s how it is.”

          Lydia’s glance is fleeting and it never quite lands anywhere, it just sketches briefly over Isabelle’s face.

          “I believe it,” she says to Isabelle’s cheek, the side of her nose, a spot just above her eyebrow.

          Isabelle giggles for a split second. Then she says, gentler, “Girls are afraid of me too. Do I look mean, Lydia?”

          “I don’t…What?”

          “Look at me,” Isabelle coaxes.

          It takes a moment, but then Lydia turns her head, and finally Isabelle is met with the full force of her gaze. She’s unwavering when she wants to be, Isabelle knows. She doesn’t like the way Lydia looks sometimes when she’s this fierce, because she doesn’t like feeling like someone’s trying to cow her. But it isn’t like that, now; now Lydia looks like the bravado is all for herself. Isabelle’s hand finds Lydia’s arm, just beneath her shoulder.

          “Can’t you see it?” she breathes. “Jace says I look like I would have a mean clique in mundane high school.”

          “I don’t know about mundane high school,” says Lydia. “But I don’t think…” She shakes her head infinitesimally. Her teeth sink into her lip again. This time her eyes don’t waver. “But I don’t think you look like you have a mean bone in your body. Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen you smiling.”

          As she does now. Lydia gives a reluctant one in return, like she knows she’s being sweet and isn’t entirely used to it yet. Isabelle slides her hand up from Lydia’s shoulder and brushes her hair behind her back, then settles it more firmly around the junction where her neck meets her shoulder. It’s not threatening, but Isabelle thinks—if it were the other way around—it might be heavy.

          “How do I look when I’m smiling?” Isabelle teases. Challenges.

          She’s nervous too, jittery, with that warm anxious fluttering in her stomach that looks like it might be in Lydia’s as well.

          Lydia presses her lips together. She seems less nervous now, and Isabelle caresses her cheek, her thumb sweeping across her cheekbone.

          “You look like just my type,” says Lydia. Then she clears her throat and says, “You know. That self-assured, bubbly, cute thing you have going on.”

          Isabelle laughs in delighted surprised, her hand falling away from Lydia’s cheek.

          “Self-assured, bubbly, and cute?” she echoes. “Are you telling me that your type is _yourself_?”

          Lydia looks a little affronted for a second, her eyebrows drawing together and her mouth partially open like she’s preparing herself for an argument. Then her forehead creases just a little bit, and she slumps as she pauses. Gradually she begins to laugh.

          “I guess I am,” she says. “Wow. I never thought of it that way.”

          “How narcissistic _are_ you?” Isabelle teases. “My god.”

          Lydia shakes her head. “You’re opening up whole new worlds for me, Isabelle. This is _ridiculous_.”

          “Better than mine,” Isabelle says dismissively. “I like girls who can break my heart.”

          Lydia turns to her, one of her perfect eyebrows arched, and she says, “Girls who look like they can or girls that will?”

          “Either, or,” Isabelle sighs. “Both.”

          Lydia looks thoughtful. She sways closer, and her head tilts. For a moment, her heart stutters and Isabelle thinks she’s going to lay it on her shoulder, but Lydia just looks at her.

          “What do they look like?” she asks. “Girls who might break your heart?”

          Isabelle pauses, thinking how to answer. It’s not any type of way they look, she thinks, it’s a _feeling_ , that they might tear her to shreds as soon as they get their fingernails in her. It’s the way they cast their eyes around the room, the way they walk, the way they watch as she unravels. Lydia’s cheek falls onto her shoulder after all.

          Isabelle, mindless, strokes her fingers through Lydia’s hair. Slowly, she finds the words.

          “It’s how she looks at me,” says Isabelle, her voice quiet. “It’s something about her…She’ll look around the room and see right through me sometimes. Other times it’s piercing…like I’m the only one there in a filled arena. We’ll get each other…so intense all the time. It’s not always good. We’re always angry or jealous or scared. Sometimes it’s more of a thrill, a good one. Like when it’s just us and we’re not doing anything. She just exists and I’m…I can tell she could destroy me.”

          She glances down at Lydia, who’s nuzzling closer the longer Isabelle’s fingers stay in her hair. Lydia’s eyes are sharp on her profile, and she doesn’t glance away even when Isabelle catches her staring.

          “Was there someone?” she asks.

          “There’s been plenty of someones,” Isabelle returns on a sigh. “I never let it get very far with girls like that. Except once.”

          Isabelle can hear how she hesitates, how she almost doesn’t ask. Then she says, “And what happened?”

          Isabelle pauses too. She doesn’t know how to describe it—she was fourteen and it was electric and then it was gone.

          “I gambled and I lost,” she says simply. She gives a little shrug of her shoulders, then shifts back against Lydia when the movement jostles her and she starts to pull back. After a second Lydia relaxes against her again. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Life just got in the way.”

          “So why are you scared of girls like her if it wasn’t her fault?”

          “Just because it wasn’t her fault doesn’t mean it wasn’t her,” Isabelle says. She knows it’s a vague answer, but Lydia doesn’t ask for clarification. After a moment, Isabelle asks, “What about you?”

          “What about me what?”

          “Was there someone?” Isabelle asks. She knows Lydia knows that she doesn’t mean John.

          Lydia makes a small noise of dismissal. “Nothing serious. Two, or three. Just flirting though, or just for a night. I’ve never met one like… _that_.”

          The corner of Isabelle’s mouth quirks up. “One who could destroy you?”

          Lydia just _hmm_ s. Isabelle lets one heartbeat pass, two. Then she says,

          “So what’s it like?”

          She’s still looking down at her, so she can see when Lydia’s gaze flickers to her face. Isabelle’s breath catches. She doesn’t think Lydia’s going to answer.

          Then she says, “Like you said. Thrilling.”

          “Destructive?”

          “Maybe,” says Lydia. “I’m not as pessimistic as you, Isabelle. I don’t spend every moment worrying about destruction. I don’t think anybody could…do that to me. I don’t think I’ll ever let anyone again. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be just like you said.”

          Isabelle shakes her head. “I don’t see how you could stop it.”

          “I don’t see why you wouldn’t,” Lydia says matter-of-factly.

          _Because_ , she wants to say, _being able to stop it means not giving yourself over to it fully. Because that means it’s not the same as being set on fire._ She wonders if it’s worth it, being set on fire, if all that’s left after is a smoky aftermath.

          Lydia breathes against her, growing softer, shifting towards sleep. Isabelle recognizes that their conversation could be over, if she let it go. She does.

          Distantly, she thinks that yes, Lydia Branwell is worth getting burned.

 

\- - -

 

          There’s a party. Someone’s having a birthday and the higher-ups okayed use of the main room for the night, probably because the birthday boy is a director’s son or someone important, Isabelle doesn’t really know. She knows that Clary is helping her pick out her dress and she doesn’t know why but she needs to make sure that she has Clary’s approval about it.

          “What about this one?” she asks, stepping out of her closet for the umpteenth time. She smooths her hands over her sides and hips and then does a spin so that Clary can assess it from every angle.

          From the bed, Clary tilts her head and taps her chin with a finger, thinking. After an extended moment, she exhales all at once and throws her arms out.

          “That’s the one,” she says. “Lydia is going to love it.”

          Isabelle pauses in examining the dress and glances up. She only falters for a second, but Clary has hitched this smile on her face and after a second, Isabelle allows herself to smile too. It’s nervous and stilted but Clary does that thing where her nose scrunches up a little, and it’s obvious she loves her.

          “You think?” Isabelle asks.

          She turns to the mirror to look at the dress from a different angle. It’s deeply blue and the neckline cuts all the way down to her midriff, but Isabelle thinks there’s something resoundingly powerful about it anyway, how to clings to her ribs and wraps around her mid-thigh when it cuts off. She spends a few more seconds just admiring the dress in the mirror, and then looks over her shoulder when Clary clears her throat.

          “She’ll think it’s perfect,” says Clary calmly.

          She stands up and strides over to Isabelle, and her hands are warm on Isabelle’s bare shoulders. They share quiet smiles.

          Then Clary says, “Now you have to help me pick something out,” and there’s no more said about it as Clary takes her hand and pulls her away towards her room.

 

          The party doesn’t start until Isabelle gets there, and not because of her ego; she brings the music.

          Everyone is lively soon after, because the rich boy paid for top-shelf liquor to be given out free at the bar and everyone is taking full advantage of the opportunity. Isabelle orders a vodka martini and then wanders away from where tipsy young Shadowhunters are all jockeying for the bartender’s attention. She sweeps on stilettos across the dance floor, which isn’t filled up very much yet, and leans down on the table where Jace and Clary are sitting talking.

          “You’re missing all the fun,” she says, smirking.

          They both stop talking to look up at her.

          “Looks like you’ve already found it,” says Jace, nodding at the martini glass she’s got pinched between her fingers.

          Clary squeezes his arm then and asks him to go get her something from the bar, and Isabelle is close to dropping into his vacated seat when she looks up at sees her.

          Lydia’s across the room near the buffet table when Isabelle spots her, and she’s stirring the punch bowl idly. Isabelle wonders if she knows that it’s filled up with liquor. She wonders if Lydia approves of this type of thing at all, and why she came since she probably doesn’t care either way.

          Isabelle glances down at Clary. She has a knowing look in her eye.

          “Go,” she whispers. “I’ll make an excuse to Jace for you.”

          Isabelle gives her a grateful smile, and Clary grins as she hops up to pull Isabelle into her arms. Clary’s hugs are like being squeezed by a particularly affectionate kitten, and Isabelle clutches her back, hoping she can convey one tenth of the warmth that Clary does. Then they part, and they share one more smile before Isabelle turns and marches over to Lydia.

          At the buffet table, she leans her hip against the edge of it and skims her eyes across the room. She sips at her martini glass. Neither of them say anything.

          Then Isabelle says, “I’m surprised to see you here.”

          Lydia doesn’t start—so she noticed her approach, at least. She gives a small shrug of her shoulders.

          “I finished up with work early,” she says. Her gaze flickers to Isabelle’s face. Isabelle looks back steadily. “Alec convinced me to come. He says I need a night off. Since it’s coming from him, I thought maybe I really should take one.”

          “I’m glad you did,” says Isabelle. “I just didn’t think you liked functions like these. Too…”

          “Fun?” Lydia supplies wryly.

          Isabelle laughs and leans into her a little. It’s supposed to be a playful bump of her hip, but she stays there instead, and it’s just her leaning on her.

          “I was going to say rowdy,” says Isabelle. “Not that you come to our bonding nights anyway.”

          “I don’t share your taste in movies.”

          “You share our taste in milkshakes at the diner after,” says Isabelle, inclining her head towards her. “You should come out with us sometimes. We go other places besides the movies.”

          Lydia rolls her eyes. “I know they barely trust me,” she says. “It’s alright. I don’t need your friends to like me.”

          “They don’t dislike you,” offers Isabelle. She sighs. “It might take some time. They want to like you. Alec already does.”

          “And Magnus now too, I suppose,” says Lydia.

          Isabelle knows they’re both thinking about the ceremony again. For a moment they stare at each other, and then they both start giggling at the same time. Once she starts, Isabelle finds it difficult to stop.

          Finally she sobers enough to say, “Would you like to dance, Lydia?”

          She doesn’t know what she expects. Just that it’s not for Lydia to clasp her hand suddenly, and Isabelle barely has enough time to throw back the rest of her martini and set the glass on the table before Lydia guides her out onto the dance floor.

          The song isn’t slow, but that doesn’t stop them. Isabelle winds her arms around Lydia’s neck. Lydia’s arms wrap around her body near her ribline, pulling her closer to her; she can feel her nails on the skin of her back where there’s patterns cut out of her dress over her spine. Isabelle runs her fingers through Lydia’s hair. It has a braid sweeping across one side again, Lydia’s signature look when she wants to seem dressed up. Side to side they sway, holding one another, and the _bumpbumpbump_ of the DJ feels like Isabelle’s rapid heartbeat but she doesn’t feel the need to match her feet to it.

          “Tell me what you’re thinking about,” she says.

          Lydia examines her face for a long moment; Isabelle can see the way her eyes flick over her, and she waits until she can feel Lydia relaxing in her arms, no games detected.

          “I’m not thinking about anything,” she says. Before Isabelle can protest, she goes on, “I’m being honest. I’m just here with you. I never just stop thinking, it’s…nice.”

          Isabelle laughs softly.

          “I know what you mean,” she says. “Sometimes it feels good to just exist.”

          Lydia leans further against her and Isabelle is thinking about more than just existing. She’s thinking about surviving, about fighting, about blood in her ears and her legs and her heart…She’s thinking about Lydia.

          “What are you thinking about?” Lydia returns. Her gaze is hard and focused on Isabelle’s face and Isabelle knows that Lydia can feel her breath picking up, she can feel Isabelle’s hands tightening on the back of her neck.

          “Everything,” says Isabelle in a rush. She startles herself with that and laughs. “You’re thinking about nothing, I’m thinking about everything. Go figure.”

          “Usually that’s all on me,” Lydia muses.

          They fall silent again. Isabelle take the reprieve from conversation to just focus on _being_ , like Lydia said. Her hands where they’re warm pressing against Isabelle’s back. The click of their heels as they turn and turn and sway. The whiff of daisies she gets every time Lydia turns her head. The points on her thigh, on her hip, on her hands and arms and chest where Lydia’s skin is touching her own. Isabelle lets her gaze sweep obviously down Lydia’s cheek, the rune curling up her neck, and across the rest of her. When she meets her eyes again, they’re searing hot in ways Isabelle’s never seen from Lydia.

          “You didn’t really just want to dance, did you.” It’s phrased like a question, but Lydia doesn’t make it sound like one. Her voice is low besides, and Isabelle feels the lightning when it sparks through her.

          “Of course I did,” says Isabelle. “Why? Don’t you find this fun?”

          She knows that coy smile is curling her mouth again; this time Lydia returns it in kind.

          “Dangerously,” is all she says.

          Isabelle should let it go; she knows she easily could, and they would share their dance and then the song would stop and they might give each other one last smile before parting ways across the room. Isabelle could sit with Clary and Jace and they would bicker and make fun of the other guests and maybe have a dance or two, a drink or four, and the night would be good and fun and comfortable.

          Isabelle doesn’t want comfortable.

          “Why dangerously?” she presses. “Nothing dangerous about us dancing. Or talking.”

          Lydia doesn’t answer for awhile; she gazes, glazed over, over Isabelle’s shoulder and she knows she’s just thinking. The song changes. Lydia doesn’t let her go. Instead she shifts closer, and her thigh is almost pressed between Isabelle’s; they’re still moving in their same slow dance as before, still at odds with the music, but that doesn’t stop Isabelle’s throat from tightening. It feels like grinding in all the ways that matter. Isabelle can feel her skin heating up and hopes she doesn’t start sweating.

          Finally, Lydia meets her eyes again. Isabelle’s breathing is picking up again, just subtly, but enough that Lydia’s gaze flicks down to her mouth.

          Time comes to a complete standstill—Isabelle is hot and her head is braids and bare feet and daisies—Lydia’s tongue flicks out to wet her lips—the DJ thrums that same _bumpbumpbump_ shooting through her heart.

          Time restarts. All Isabelle gets is the smallest warning gasp from Lydia before her lips come crashing down on hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hundreds of wips fall out of my pocket] I JUST DON'T KNOW ANYMORE
> 
>  
> 
> [xoxo](http://bkinney.tumblr.com/post/142130255045)

**Author's Note:**

> [xoxox hmu](http://bkinney.tumblr.com/)


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